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Proposed Treaty a Worthless Scrap of Paper |
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By Pavel Felgenhauer MOSCOW, May 17, 2002 -- Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin have agreed to sign a treaty next week in Moscow to cut strategic nuclear weapons over 10 years from their present level of 5,000 to 6,000 warheads each to 2,200 to 1,700. The proposed treaty is only three pages long, in sharp contrast to previous strategic arms control agreements like START I, signed in 1991, or START II, signed in 1993, that ran to hundreds of pages with appendices describing in detail verification of compliance procedures, timetables for decommissioning of specific weapons systems, precise definitions of the methods for counting warheads, etc. A high-ranking Russian official who has access to the new draft treaty told me this week that most of the text consists of a long preamble that includes a declaration of good intent, assurances of friendship, speaks of peace on Earth and so on. The treaty per se is only half a page long (double spaced). It seems Bush this week read out the entire "treaty" to reporters virtually verbatim: "Russia and the U.S. will by 2012 have 2,200 to 1,700 warheads." This treaty does not have any timetable for decommissioning, no definitions of what a warhead is or how to count them, no verification procedures -- no nothing. Russian sources say that Washington has supplied Moscow with some plans for future decommissioning of strategic weapons systems (e.g., 50 MX Peacemaker missiles with 10 warheads each are earmarked by the Pentagon for scrapping soon). But these decommissioning plans are not part of the new treaty and are in fact unilateral, nonbinding promises. Washington has also vowed great openness and says it will allow the Russians full access to verify future cuts. But again the verification procedures are not stipulated in the treaty and depend only on future goodwill. Legally speaking, in military arms control terms, the new treaty is nothing more than a worthless scrap of paper. Without any agreed procedure on how to count nuclear warheads, an entire nuclear submarine with 20 ballistic missiles and the capability of carrying 400 nuclear devices may be counted as one "warhead" if most of its payload is temporarily stored on land. The new treaty essentially allows Russia and the United States to cut or not as they please, to deploy new attack systems or to keep old ones. This is not arms control, but the end of arms control as it has been known for 30 years. Of course, the new treaty will be condemned as a national sellout by many in the Russian elite. Last Sunday, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, anticipating a wave of criticism, announced that the new treaty is only a brief outline and that some follow-ups may be negotiated. However, the possibility that Washington will continue traditional arms control negotiations is minute. The new treaty is seen as a major victory for Washington and a defeat for the Kremlin, which wanted some substantial guarantees that planned U.S. missile defenses will not threaten Russia and that offensive nuclear cuts will be "irreversible" but got a worthless piece of paper. However, the treaty is assured of ratification in the State Duma, where Putin has a comfortable majority. In fact some of Russia's military chiefs also support the accord. From 1997 to 2001, when Igor Sergeyev was defense minister, almost all procurement money was spent on strategic nuclear weapons. Since Sergeyev's ouster there has been a backlash against strategic nuclear weapons led by Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Kvashnin. The General Staff is planning to use the treaty to cut strategic missiles and spend its money on other projects. Strategic nuclear weapons are increasingly seen as senseless and unusable by many Russian generals. In 1999, despite strong objections from Russia, NATO bombed Yugoslavia and nuclear deterrence could not prevent it. The outcome would have been the same whether Russia had 1,500 warheads or 5,500. The new treaty may actually turn out to be a "win" for both Moscow and Washington inasmuch as its signing signals that Russia has abandoned the cherished principle of nuclear parity with the United States -- the last vestige of former Soviet superpower status. Now it is time the Kremlin stopped acting as a lame superpower in other fields by downsizing not only its nuclear arsenal by two-thirds but its entire military machine and reforming what's left into something more professional, so that Russia can begin to develop as a normal, civil state. -- Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst. © The Moscow Times, 2002. Distributed in partnership with Globalvision News Network (www.gvnews.net). All rights reserved. |
